A new genus and species of enantiornithine bird from the Early Cretaceous of Brazil

Abstract

ABSTRACT:The fossil record of birds in Gondwana is almost restricted to the Late Cretaceous. Herein we describe a new fossil from the Araripe Basin, Cratoavis cearensis nov. gen et sp., composed of an articulated skeleton with feathers attached to the wings and surrounding the body. The present discovery considerably extends the temporal record of the Enantiornithes birds at South America to the Early Cretaceous. For the first time, an almost complete and articulated skeleton of an Early Cretaceous bird from South America is documented. KEYWORDS:

Praeornis sharovi Rautian, 1978 a fossil feather from the early Late Jurassic of Kazakhstan

“…In fact, by that time, only sparse avian records were described for the Jurassic and only Archaeopteryx from Solnhofen (Germany) stands as a Jurassic avialan (Bock 1986). However, the recent finding of a large variety and abundance of fossil skeletons of avian and non-avian theropods having different feather kinds have been reported from Jurassic and Cretaceous China (O'Connor et al 2012) and Brazil (Carvalho et al 2015a(Carvalho et al , 2015b, and invites us to take a new look at Praeornis. Downloaded by [181.47.137.193] at 08:25 11 December 2017…”

“…In recent years the fossil record of Mesozoic birds has been dramatically increased mainly by the abundant record of China (Chiappe and Meng, 2016). More recently, a basal Enantiornithine was found in Early Cretaceous strata of Brazil (Carvalho et al 2015a(Carvalho et al , 2015b. The specimen shows very well-preserved 3D tail feathers that allow to recognise and interpret several features of tail morphology in basal birds.…”

“…Furthermore, as early recognised, rachis-dominated feathers are sharply different from these tail feathers (Xu et al 2010a(Xu et al , 2010b: in confuciusornithids and Enantiornithes the rachis-dominated rectrices are always preserved subparallel each other. They seem to be a rigid structure (Carvalho et al 2015a(Carvalho et al , 2015b, having distal symmetrical vanes composed of very thick and probably rigid barbs. The very thick and rigid rachis and general morphology of this kind of tail feather indicate that it was not probably aerodynamical performed, and evidence at hand suggest that the paired rectrices may not spread as in living birds (Carvalho et al 2015a(Carvalho et al , 2015b.…”

“…Because none of the previous authors compared Praeornis with the abundant evidence of fossil feathers coming from the Jurassic-Cretaceous deposits of China (Xu et al 2010a;O'Connor et al 2012) and Brazil (Carvalho et al 2015a(Carvalho et al , 2015b we think that a comparison may shed some light to Praeornis affinities. The aim of the present contribution is to discuss some aspects of Praeornis and to propose a new look at this controversial specimen.…”

O estudo dos répteis fósseis-cresce a contribuição da ciência brasileira

“…Vale o registro, inclusive, da primeira ave fóssil brasileira a ser formalmente nominada e que apresenta as penas da cauda bastante alongadas, cuja função ainda não é totalmente elucidada (13).…”